A gross of $11,000 per screen is quite good. If you're an autumn Wide Release, opening on 3500 screens across the country. When a movie opens on only 69 of the nation's largest theaters in a few dozen of the largest cities, with almost all of your target audience within range of those theaters, it's pretty bad.

Brokeback Mountain played in fourteen times more theaters this Friday than last Friday, and made less than four times as much money, only $760,000. It looks like the movie will make considerably less than its $15 million budget before the Academy Awards come out. How many tens of millions of dollars in free promotion, reduced pay and credibility were spent on this film?

King Kong also appears to be a flop. I've seen this movie: Peter Jackson has mastered many movie-making techniques with the Lord of the Rings, and the movie is an amazing spectacle with much positive and true to say about human nature. But Jackson did not learn how to discipline his budgeting or story-telling. His movie is also bloated, over-long, too violent, very horrific and a bit tooo preposterous.

The early part of the movie centers around a movie director too obsessed with his story, prone to overkill, and swindling a movie company out of far more than they would have been willing to spend. Given that actor Jack Black even slightly resembles Peter Jackson, I can't help but to wonder if how consciously auto-biographical the film is. It will make many, many, many times more than Brokeback Mountain, and still become known as a flop. I sincerely hope Peter Jackson learns the right things from the experience; he is very talented, very passionate, and, from the messages of his movies, very decent. King Kong made $14 million last night... It will probably easily pass $100 million, but land short of its $200 million budget. On the other hand, it is precisely the sort of movie that translates well overseas, and does well on DVD. But it will not be the Box Office savior hoped for.

Chronicles of Narnia will apparently need a rebound in the Christmas vacations to be profitable. Except for a literally rushed ending, it's almost perfect, a purely magical delight. But it seems to have very weak legs; it's not surprising since everyone who wanted to see this movie knew they did so a long time ago, and most rushed out to see it immediately. Today's movie markets don't allow for the sort of excellent word of mouth that Narnia is getting.

That word of mouth means probably good DVD sales, and strong anticipation of a sequel, so Narnia's Box Office is by no means a failure... just it'll take some time to become profitable. Narnia sold about $9 million worth of tickets, down over 60% from last Friday.

But there doesn't seem to be any great challenger to Narnia for the Holiday season. The Family Stone opened weak ($4 million), Harry Potter is mostly played out ($1.5 million), as are Walk the Line ($1 million) and Yours Mine and Ours (under $1 million) Syriana also fell hard, too... ($1.6 million).

Don't look for any saviors at the box office next week either... Cheaper by the Dozen 2, Fun with Dick and Jane, The Ringer, and Rumor Has It all open, but none look too strong

Did they really think a movie that appeals to such a small proportion of the population would do well?

I haven't seen it ... maybe it's a good story, but the press for this film is stuck on the fact that there are gays in it ... so that's what people are going to think about it; it's a gay cowboy movie.

I can't say I'm surprised that King Kong isn't doing as well as some people thought. It's good, but Lord of The Rings it ain't. And if the producers expected it to be as successful just because of Peter Jackson they need to come back to reality.

3
posted on 12/17/2005 11:14:08 AM PST
by Siegfried The Red
(Subgeniuses are the last TRUE Americans!)

Bareback Mountain is simply another vehicle for mainstreaming the Gay lifestyle and most people know it - Despite the propaganda and outright deceptive advertising designed to present it as some form of 'Family Friendly' movie.

Just as the large majority reject Gay Marriage so will they reject this crap and, IMO, that is just as it should be.

And I'm going to see Lion, Witch and Wardrobe tomorrow. What a great story!

And yes, Lewis explicitly state it was NOT allegory. What he meant was that Aslan LITERALLY WAS CHRIST in the film, not just a Christ-like figure. His idea was about what it would be like if Christ had to save a world like Narnia that was populated by talking animals instead of humans. In that case, he would come to the world as an animal instead of a man.

That was the idea, and so it's not technically allegory, but I'm probably just splitting hairs.

7
posted on 12/17/2005 11:16:20 AM PST
by Siegfried The Red
(Subgeniuses are the last TRUE Americans!)

It WAS intended to have a religious theme. And Christ was a lion, an powerful force for good, but maybe also he was thinking that God could be wrathful against the wicked as well. Keep in mind, it's fiction. He didn't mean Christ literally was a lion on Earth. Narnia was a different place. If Christ returned to Earth, would he be full of wrath? I don't know, I'm not an expert in the Book of Revelations.

Did they really think a movie that appeals to such a small proportion of the population would do well?

No. I said in another thread that movies like this - they have to hype the hell out of the awards (and come up with all kinds of awards to give it) in order to keep justifying them. With this being a down year in movies (not due to piracy - due to turning out crummy movies), the stockholders and accountants are going to be really keeping an eye on things over the next few years.

I saw the trailer (and I use the term loosely)for dirt road mountain when I went to see Walk the line. There was a collective groan that went up from the audience when we figured out what this p.o.s. was about.

The letter, written from Magdalene College, Cambridge, where Lewis was a don, contradicts this. Supposing there really was a world like Narnia . . . and supposing Christ wanted to go into that world and save it (as He did ours) what might have happened? he wrote.

The stories are my answer. Since Narnia is a world of talking beasts, I thought he would become a talking beast there as he became a man here. I pictured him becoming a lion there because a) the lion is supposed to be the king of beasts; b) Christ is called the lion of Judah in the Bible.

Interesting ... :)

34
posted on 12/17/2005 11:25:55 AM PST
by Siegfried The Red
(Subgeniuses are the last TRUE Americans!)

I would not allow my family, nor encourage anyone in my circle of family and friends to view a movie that pushes the homosexual agenda at all costs to the detriment of respect for decent human morals and the betterment of our society.

In Hollyweird, and the coasts no other social agenda gets pushed as much, given the millions of dollars of free media, glowing national daily newspaper editorial comment, and the regular subject of lamestream trash tv.

Nor am I that keen on promoting an elective activity that is highly risky to physical health and mental welfare. But I do not discourage those so inclined to pursue such activity regularly and routinely with reckless abandon as to the consequences. Such foolishness will ultimately lead us to a better gene pool.

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